Alabama

Mark Calvi joins South Alabama baseball program

BILL STARLING/Staff PhotographerMark Calvi speaks at a press conference on Friday in Mobile where he was introduced as the associate head coach of the South Alabama baseball team.

Mark Calvi's decision to become South Alabama's associate head coach in baseball may have been difficult, yet it also was an easy sell for the former South Carolina pitching coach, who becomes Steve Kittrell's successor at the end of 2011 season.

Calvi moves from a national title team to help rebuild a USA program that has played in 18 NCAA regionals in Kittrell's 27 years. He leaves behind six years of hard work and a bright future with the Gamecocks, hoping to rekindle the championship form missing in the Jaguars' play since 2006, their last appearance in the NCAA playoffs.

"This was one of the hardest, if not the hardest, decision I've ever had to make in my life," Calvi said after being introduced by USA athletic director Joel Erdmann on Friday at the Mitchell Center. "The University of South Carolina and its people is one of the finest places I've ever been in my life. The people I worked with, the friends we made, the colleagues, I loved them to death. What I can say? We won a national championship and that will forever be etched in my mind.

"With that being said, I felt it was time to move on to something that I think is not necessarily bigger or better, but it gives a unique opportunity. A unique opportunity to coach at, quite honestly with you, a university that I've always had in my mind as a place I would love to coach one day."

Calvi, 41, was selected to be South Alabama's fifth head coach in the program's 47-year history from a pool of 10 candidates who received on-campus interviews in the past two weeks. Erdmann, however, said he was aware of the former Florida International pitching coach's qualifications for several months.

"Coach Calvi was on our radar screen prior to the national championship, prior to Omaha, prior to a Super Regional and prior to a regional," said Erdmann. "Part of my job is to continually explore the horizon and look for potential candidates. When I would talk to my peers and colleagues and experts in the world of college baseball, one name kept coming up over and over.

"He's not here today because he won a national championship. He's here today because he's a tremendous young man and coach. When the dust settled after the interviews and we had a chance to exhale and look at the strengths and weaknesses, a man by the name of Calvi just started to elevate above everyone else. It became incredibly clear and simple the best man to fill this position, and a year from now lead this program was coach Calvi."

Calvi's background could bring immediate dividends to South Alabama. The Jaguars' pitching staff has struggled the past four seasons with the team's ERA above 5.00 each year.

"The emphasis will be on pitching," said Calvi. "The guys need to be brought in and they need to be developed. The bottom line -- and don't let anyone tell you that coaches make players -- is good players make good coaches.

"I'm not taking anything away from a coach that's a good coach. The better players you have, the better coach you look like. You take a good player, add good coaching and that's a dangerous combination. So it's all about getting good players and then coaching them up to the best of your ability and making them believe that they can win. You provide them direction and structure and then let them go play. You stay out of their way and let them play."

Calvi's 11 years of experience at Florida International also could ease the transition in Kittrell's final year in charge.

"I don't think (the experience at FIU) can hurt," said Calvi. "I know the league. I understand where we travel. I understand some of the towns and the places that we go. Some of the faces have changed as far as coaches, but I understand the style of ball that's played in the Sun Belt.

"It definitely didn't hurt the fact that I worked for coach Danny Price for 11 years. I got the chance to learn under him and his ways. I also learned a lot from coach Kittrell. I used to dread playing South Alabama when I was at FIU because his teams were tough kids, they were coached well and they outhustled you. And even though you thought that your team was prepared, you were never quite fully prepared for coach Kittrell's team.

"I told coach Kittrell in my interview with him that 'I owed some of my success to you.' He taught me some lessons of what I didn't know that I had to start teaching pitchers differently so we could come up (to Mobile) and actually have a chance to beat South Alabama."

Calvi, whose salary is expected be in the $125,000 range, said he's coming to USA to stay a long time.

"This is where I want to be and this truly is where I want to be," he said. "I'm not interested in leaving in two or three years or four or five. I'm interested in being here and seeing this thing through. I'm interested in building on what the two coaches before me have done such a phenomenal job of building. I'm in this for the long haul.

"I've had a lot of dreams come true in the last month. This has been a phenomenal time for me and my family. This is one of the schools that I always wanted to coach at. Very rarely do you get a chance to live out your dreams in life, and this is the second dream come true for me in the last month. This is an unbelievable opportunity for me."